Chhaya Malik, Deputy Director of Dispute Resolution

Chhaya Malik is an experienced attorney and mediator practicing in the areas of complex litigation, government service, and public interest advocacy. Prior to joining the CRD, Ms. Malik served as Special Counsel at Ramsey & Ehrlich spearheading investigations into misconduct as well as defending individuals in enforcement actions brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other governmental authorities. Prior to that, Ms. Malik served as the interagency policy lead at the United States Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and as a litigator at Hogan Lovells LLP. She also served as the Thurgood Marshall Fellow at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and as counsel at the Advancement Project working on matters related to voting rights, race discrimination, and poverty law.

Ms. Malik received her J.D. from U.C. Berkeley (Boalt Hall) and received her undergraduate degree from U.C. Berkeley, with Highest Honors in Business Administration. While in law school, she worked on the appellate team of a death row inmate through the Death Penalty Clinic of the U.C. Berkeley School of Law. Before law school, Chhaya worked as a financial analyst in mergers & acquisitions at Goldman Sachs.

In 2020, the California State Bar Board of Trustees appointed Chhaya to the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation (JNE) where she has been selected to serve as Vice Chair in the 2023-2024 term.